Thursday, August 4, 2016

Effective progressive framing

Since I've explored in various posts how to frame progressive values effectively, see Lakoff & Wehling's The Little Blue Book in the following link. His book Thinking Points is also available in the thread starter post. E.g., from the beginning of Chapter 5:

"Traditional liberal discourse strategies are not consistent with the science of how reason really works. In light of this science, here are some ways those strategies could be improved.

"Liberals tend to talk about policy and about facts and figures. But as we have just seen, policies make sense only as part of a morally based cascade of frames, most of which are unconscious, working in the brain behind the scenes.

"Liberals love to quote conservatives and argue against them, citing real facts. This rarely works. If a conservative argues for 'cutting needless spending,' liberals shouldn’t argue against 'cutting needless spending.' They should say what they believe: 'The economy needs an infusion of cash to put people to work rebuilding our infrastructure and growing our economy.'

"Some commentators point out that conservatives vote against their economic interests. What they miss is that those conservatives are voting their moral interests, and they will continue to do so. Therefore liberals need to understand the difference between policy and morality and that morality beats policy. Moral discourse is thus absolutely necessary. Failing to understand this is a major reason why the Democrats lost the House in 2010." [And 2014, I might add.]

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